Impossible Difficulty for XCOM Is a Roguelike Experience, Says Developer

Gamers should try to learn from their mistakes rather than aim for success

Rogue experience

The Second Wave free downloadable content for XCOM: Enemy Unknown introduces a host of new options for the single-player campaign, but some of them are only available to those who have finished the game on all possible difficulty levels.

Jake Solomon, the leading developer working on XCOM: Enemy Unknown, tells Rock, Paper, Shotgun the reasons behind the choices, saying that, “I’m typically not a big fan of unlocks, but the reason why we decided to do that is that the ones that are behind Classic and especially Impossible are really, really punishing.”

The developer believes that players should actually think of Impossible difficulty level as a sort of roguelike experience and learn from their mistakes, rather than be disappointed when they lose a soldier or the game.